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Any trademark or patent risk for some Brick USB drive similar to Lego?
 

Hi everyone,

I got a supplier who can offer me some Regtanglar Brick Toy Shape USB flash drive, looks like Lego brick. But I'll not mention anything related to Lego in my listing title or description. But I'm having some concerns:

Are there any trademark or patent rights linked with Lego which allow them stop people from selling retangular brick shape items? Is Lego the only one who can manufacture and sell these brick shape toys and items?

If anyone has some ideas or experiences on this issue, would appreciate some sharing

You might want to buy 10-50 or so to start off with and see how it goes before committing yourself to a major amount.

If it doesn't work out...Craigslist the remainder.

Dont worry you will be fine. As long as you dont mention lego. Is there such thing as conterfit lego anyway? If not they probly arnt even active vero members

Thanks for your reply.

Of course, if I sell this item, "Lego" will never be mentioned anywhere in the title or description. I'll just sell as a general brick toy thing.

In fact, I looked around the internet and found out that Lego has failed to stop other companies from copying their brick-toy design in some lawsuits for the past few years. Main reason is their patent has been expired. And they can't use the trademark law as the design itself is not a brand or logo and cannot be treated as trademark.

I tried looking eBay's VERO member page, but didn't find Lego. However, it doesn't mean that they won't report to eBay, right? I'm just worried that even I know I don't break any law by selling this item, Lego may just report to eBay and try to eliminate something they don't like, just like a lot of other people abusing eBay's VERO system. The problem is in all times, eBay just try to escape from troubles and will favor the VERO member without investigating if the claim is valid. In such case, as a small eBay seller, I'm always the one to suffer and I have no way to take any legal fight back, right?

What do you say?

First thing to check is whether your drives are ⊗⊗⊗⊗. There is a trend among Chinese suppliers to sell you ⊗⊗⊗⊗ drives. Such as they sell you an 8 GB drive, but it's only 4 GB, it just reports it is 8 GB. Thus when you store data on it, only 4 GB are stored, the other 4 GB are lost. If you want ⊗⊗⊗⊗ drives, there is a way to make your cheaper and smaller real drives into ⊗⊗⊗⊗ once.

This particular condition earns you an automatic neg, and a call to credit card company. Although many buyers don't find out about this well after 90 days of use.

There is a reason everyone of us is banned, selling a product such as a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ USB is a good enough reason, IMO, of course. Because we are dealing with precious computer data. Imagine uploading your taxes on a drive, just to later find out half of it is lost.

Second thing. I would not lay my hands on a USB that looks like a lego. Period. I'd go for something more slick, like a black compact looking box, or perhaps a wood shaped art. Now this is of course subjective, there are people who buy space shoes to compliment their space wind breaker. Point is, a lego shaped USB stick is far from a winning idea.

OK, I think the quality and popularity of the items is something to think about. But not really my first concern here.

I'm more concerned about the legal risks if I sell this kind of Brick-shaped USB items. This Lego-brick-look item is just a little thing. But based on the knowledge earned, the same concept would apply to a lot of other things in future when I search for good items to sell.

So if anyone can share some experience, will be appreciated.

Thanks.

You can say it looks like a lego block in the item description but not in the title. As long as it doesnt say made by Lego or a copy of a Lego item its ok. Its fine to compare an item's look and functionality to another brand in the item description.
See here for a sickeningly patronising overview:
eBay Policy Tutorial - VeRO

No, I'm not gonna say any "LEGO" in the title or description. Don't really need to do this to sell the items.

But my concern is, though I know Lego's patent protection for their inter-locking brick design has expired, I'm still worried if they'll try to kick out other people from using similar design of items to earn money, just like those big brand name companies trying to eliminate small sellers in eBay and keeping their price sold in designated stores at high price even their arguements are not strong enough.

The problem is, eBay never protect small sellers. They just do whatever big companies ask them to do in order to avoid troubles.

Before selling anything on eBay I do research for roughly 30-60 days. Looking at current auctions as well as completed. I also check daily and make a record of what auctions are up and compare this to what auctions actually end. That way I can see if an auction was pulled down (most likely for Vero).

I don't know anything about Lego-like items, but I would suggest you do some research and see if other people are selling them and how they've sold in the past.

Obviously when it comes to an item that's never been sold before on eBay you run the risk of being the first person to get nailed for Vero. In that case I would do as TheyGotMeToo suggested and start out selling small quantities.

Good luck.

Id be very surprised if they pulled the listing because its block shaped like lego. As long as it doesnt have any Lego markings on it, then its fine. There are thousands of brand-like items on Ebay which are perfectly legal- eg the Hi Phone http://http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Mobil...em220378133509
It is a blatant imitation of the iPhone- but a legal one.

That's something made me feel strange. When I searched in eBay, only 1 or 2 sellers were selling this item. Even it may be a very special item that not many people know where to source, but seems like there're just too few sellers are selling them.

Yes, I keep checking the items these days and will see what'll happen to the current sellers before posting them myself.

It's just quite frustrating to sell in eBay sometimes

In my opinion no one's selling them cos they're crap and there no profit on them - I found those a while back and considered selling them - they are novel, but that's about it.

My research show that no bugger wants them. As has been said - for data storage people want something they can trust - not novelty. But maybe your research will show different.

As a rule of thumb - I reckon avoid anything at all which is electrical from China or outside of your home country. Do you really want to be dealing with returns on faulty items?

If you are looking to attract people with the keyword "Lego" then you will be attracting many people along with possible LEGO eBay VeRO members. I would avoid memory at all costs, since 99% of it is not the memory it says. Most of them are 512mb internally even if it says 4gb, 32gb, etc. It also will show on their computer at 32gb, but the internal is still 512mb. It wont take long to piss people off, and the reliability on these is horrible. This is a high risk category, and add in a name brand you are only asking for problems. AVOID.

I would also like to add the more components that go into something that just adds one more possibility for the product to fail. For example, an ePad would have so many components to them, that there is a high failure rate. An phone case is about as simple as it gets, but they still have their problems as well, but not nearly as high as many others.

Well stated RSS

Well done reviving a 2009 thread too:juggle: :doh:

****, that's what too many late nights staring at a screen does to you - those numbers start to jump around and out of the screen...